The present disclosure is directed to locating electrical faults in an electrical circuit, in particular electrical faults in transmission wires of an electrical circuit.
Many electrical systems, such as those in an aircraft power distribution system use long transmission wires, often hundreds of meters or kilometers in length, to deliver power from electrical power sources to electrical loads. However, the long transmission wires can experience faults which need to be repaired. Attempts have been made to identify the location of a fault on live transmission wires in an electric circuit using “reflectometry”. This technique involves measuring the time taken for a signal to be reflected from a discontinuity or an open circuit at a fault. Knowing the speed at which the signal travels, the location of the fault may be determined from the time taken for the reflected signal to return from the discontinuity.
However, it has been found that the “reflectometry” technique is only suitable in particular situations, such as for faults in low voltage applications. The inability to reliably detect the location of a fault in an electrical system leads to time consuming investigations to determine the location of faults requiring the electrical systems to be shut down which is inconvenient.